I wake up in a bed, the same bed that I had seen up the stairs in Eth's room. I turn my head, and find a head of white hair to my right. Eth put me to bed. I had a conniption. That is a bit embarrassing.

  I will admit that these clothes are quite comfortable, though. I slide off the covers, very careful, so as not to wake my apparent bedmate, and take a look at the clothes the... flesh monster picked for me.

  I looked down my still rather new body to find a familiar set of clothes. Just a brown leather tunic, a pair of pants of the same color, and a canvas travelling cloak to go with it. I suppose brown is just my color now, because I and my clothes are now brown. Not that I don't like it.

  I like the earthy colors, they make me feel cozy and comfortable. Eth's room is a wooden... library, I think it is called. I never visited one in my past life.

  Though, she keeps the pce extremely clean, everything sorted, organized, and in it's pce, cking a lot of the clutter that most lived in pces have. It fits with her personality, but ends up being kinda unnerving. It seems fake, somehow.

  The most notable thing about her room, being the main thing that separates it from being inherently homely, is the bridge that comes, as if a balcony, off of the second floor. It goes down the length of the room, ending on the far wall above the doors. Where it ends, there is a stone recess in the wall, semicircur, that has a podium holding up an orb with something in it.

  That orb... I stare, and the room fades away. I can only see the bridge, and its goal. I begin to walk towards the end, and further, and further, not even realizing that I'm not even blinking. I get close enough to see it.

  It is beautiful, and orb as clear as spring water and somehow as deep as the sky. Inside, as I can finally see, is a cracked earthen ball, surrounded by a haze on a bck background. Inside of the cracks are golden geometric patterns, and fluid strings? Lines? Symbols? of silver that I can't quite focus on. They hurt my head.

  Now that I am close to it, I feel a sense of connection, specifically to the earthen shell. It feels like... me? Sand, dirt, cy, earth, soil, me?

  I am jolted out of the trance I was in by a hand on my shoulder. I jump and whip my head around to find Eth standing behind me. "Excuse me, but what exactly do you think you are doing?" I stare at her for a moment, then point at the orb I was looking at. She looks at it, then her eyes widen.

  "What did you do to it? Why is there that shell?" She gets up in my face, and stares me in my eyes with those hard golden eyes of hers, and I cannot speak.

  My mouth moves as if to say something, anything, but I can't, Eth is too overbearing. My eyes begin to get blurry with tears, and I start to shake. Why am I so scared right now? It feels like my father yelling at me, but I haven't been this emotional before. I guess I forgot that I am a girl now.

  Does it matter? I don't care what my emotions say, I'm me, and there's nothing they can do to change that.

  I pull myself together even as Eth seems to recoil, looking mortified. We look at each other for a moment, me blinking the tears out of my eyes, and Eth seeming to be waiting for me to respond in some other way than crying, because she obviously has no experience in emotional matters.

  I have some because of my prior life, but it sure seems like she doesn't. I sit down, cross-legged, and nod to Eth. She sits down too, trepidaciously. I can't be mad at her.

  "So, what exactly is this thing that you don't want me to touch?" It definitely has some magical properties, but what are they? What can this thing do? Why do I feel connected to it?

  "We do not exactly know."

  "What?"

  "I think that it is our souls, all of them. I do not have enough information. It frustrates me to no end. I do know, however, that it is extremely important, simply due to it's location in the only Creator-made room. I call it the Me orb"

  Oh, wow, that is a lot. "I think you might be right. I feel a connection, but only to the earthen shell. Do you feel one?"

  "Yes, but I feel a connection to the geometric patterns in the core. Chaos said that she was the twisty lines in the core. Also, they appeared when she did"

  I look up at the orb. How could that be me? Am I not human anymore? No, probably not. Chaos summoned me with sticks or something, and my body is not made of flesh, whatever it is.

  Wait.

  Am I actually just made of dirt?

  I am so confused right now.

  "Eth, what are we?"

  She looks at me for a second, contemptive, then stands up. She steps up to and looks at the orb, with me following close behind her. The patterns that represent her just seem more real with her presence nearby.

  "I am sorry, but I do not know the answer to that. The Creater, when I met them, tald me that I was a maid to take care of this room, and that is what I intend to do.

  "As much as she scares me, I feel that I need to add Chaos' theory. She believes that we are deities of a sort, and I find that this orb just supports her ideas. I kind of envy her, how she does not need certantity to draw reasonable conclusions."

  Eth gnces over at me, then turns away with a lightly flushed face. "I apologise for rambling, did I answer your question?"

  I blink in suprise at Eth's monologe, and respond "Of course," as if on reflex.

  I have a lot to think about.

  I nod at Eth in thanks, and she smiles and nods back, then frowns, and turns to face the orb. I walk away, seeking out the peace of my cave and desert.

  Aethernal